All Is Service

From a talk Ram Dass gave at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, New York, on June 20, 1986, published as Here and Now Ep. 315, “Serving the Beloved.” Episode page · Video

Who You Think You Are

Now, in terms of the yoga¹ of service, when you're with another human being in some relationship, where you're standing as to who you think you are and who you think they are has a great deal to do with almost every aspect of the relationship.

It has to do with whether or not you two are going to get caught in some some drama that is going to be divisive, that is going to leave you both suffering.

Or on the other hand, if you're looking at it from certain place, you can do any act with another human being in such a way that it leaves you with more energy, freer, lighter.

And the way you do it creates an environment in which another person can end up freer and lighter through the act, the interaction between. And it can be as simple an interaction as changing a bedpan or saying hello to somebody in the office or — it's so easy to keep helping and serving as something you do: either you get a credential so you can serve, or your parents you serve, or these obvious things of serving and helping like cooking food or cleaning up. But in actuality every single act between human beings is an act that has the capacity to help or serve or liberate.

And finally, that, that level, you see that all is service. Just all that. Then the word service, like the word love, loses its meaning, because it's not something that you have a choice — I will serve or not — because at that point you have become service.

Now, I'm talking very far-out talk, and I want to make clear where the game goes, because I think if we have the highest appreciation of what it is about, we can sort of guide our course a little bit in that direction, because it's so easy to get lost in the in the drama of everyday life.

A Word About Words

When a girl who was with my guru² Maharaj³ — she was having trouble with a rather fickle boyfriend — Maharaj, he said to her, "Don't you realize your only friend is God?" Now, I realize that a lot of you, when I say the word God, wince or tighten. Not all of you. In fact, not even half of you. But there are some of you for whom the word God is a real no-no.

It comes out of your childhood and a lot of unpleasant experiences you've had with that concept. It also comes out of your fear that you're going to get caught in dualism, in worshipping something external to yourself.

And I think when I say the word God, if I make it clear, then I don't have to wince when I say it. Out of empathy for you.

Ramana Maharshi⁴ said, "God, guru, and self are one in the same thing." That the guru is a doorway you look through, and God is something that when you are in a human form in duality, where you're relating to children and parents, and friends, and politicians, and lawyers, and doctors, et cetera, there is a relational quality in the natural style of human beings with their minds and their senses. And it's very natural to relate to something.

It's very hard for me to say, "Open your heart to the void." It just doesn't turn you on. The void isn't quite — it doesn't have an emotional pull. And since the quickest way into the spirit is mobilizing both the mind and the heart, you try to work with things that open the heart as well as quiet the mind and focus the mind.

All Methods Are Traps

And so that all these forms, all these forms of gurus, gods, idols, all of them, they're methods. They are methods. They are ultimately traps if you stop there. But the game of a method is to use it.

All methods are traps. I mean, meditation is a trap. You don't want to end up a meditator; you want to end up free. I mean, you can end up a good meditator, and that's great for this life, but it's not going to get you free.

And you can have been a great lover of Christ, but that isn't freedom. Finally, you've got to become Christ.

Now, in most Western exoteric religions, that's a no-no. You don't think, "I am God," or "I am Christ." That's — you don't think that. That's chutzpah⁵.

And the — because they are primarily devotional, dualistic, exoteric religions that are based on the fact that the people they're serving aren't really going to awaken to their true self, and they are providing for human beings an emotional connection to something beyond themselves and beyond the world they know. And as such, it's extremely useful as long as you don't get frightened by it.

So, that when I use the word God, I am not thinking of a grandfatherly figure with a stern visage as the Old Testament often portrays him. I am thinking — I'm not anthropomorphizing God. I'm experiencing God as we've been talking these past few days about the law or the way or the harmony of things. I see God as all form. As the formless made manifest into all this form, I see that as God made manifest. I see God as the formless.

It's a way that I can — it's a short mnemonic, a word for labeling that which is unspeakable. And the Hebrews, realizing that, spell it G-D. They — it's like an unspeakable word. It's not unspeakable because it's so secret. It's unspeakable because no word can contain what it is.

So, what I experience, it is like saying I am talking about that vastness of myself that is below the surface, the iceberg we're talking about. The part that I don't know of myself, that deepest part of my being. That's my God self. And in Hinduism, they call it the Jivatman⁶ or that part of God that's within oneself.

So, if you understand that when I use the word God, I don't anthropomorphize, although in devotional yoga, when you sing to Ram⁷ or you sing to Krishna⁸, or you talk to Christ, you are anthropomorphizing that quality. And that's okay, because it opens your heart and directs it towards somebody, and then you go through that somebody into that which is beyond. And it takes your emotional body with you, rather than leaving your emotional body behind. That's all it's about that I can understand.

Despair as a Doorway

Now, when you, when you start to appreciate that God is everywhere, or the spirit is everywhere, then the question comes, "Why aren't I seeing it?" And then you realize it's the eyes of the beholder. It's which level you're choosing to look at. Or which level your desires are allowing you to look at. Cuz I said before, if you're too hungry, you just see what's edible.

And it's only when you start to yearn to know your true self, or yearn to see beyond, or realize the ephemeral nature of all the stuff that you grab hold of in the world, that you start to turn your direction somewhere else. And that's why they often say that despair is a prerequisite for spiritual awakening. Meaning despair that everything you collecting is going to be enough.

I thought the new car was going to do it.
I thought when I married my beloved, it was going to solve the problem.
I thought when we got the bills paid.
I thought when I got when I grew up.
I thought when I got old and got over my passions.
I thought, etc.

And it was, one by one, each of those turns out to be, in a way, a hollow thing. It's beautiful, but it's not quite it.

There's a great quote from Kabir.⁹ And this is pretty far out, and I'm pushing it a lot today, but I think it's worth it. After all, let's not do the beginners' course if we can go right into the advanced one.

This is a quote from Kabir. It says, "Dancing is not for me anymore." I don't mean last night's dance. That's not what I'm referring — it means the dance of life, of worldly stuff.

Dancing is not for me anymore.
The mind no longer plays the tune.
What was empty is now full.
The vessel of desires is broken.
The gown of desire has become frayed.
All illusions are gone.
Parts enough have I played.
I can act no more.
Friends and companions have all forsaken me.
God's name alone I now have.
The restless ones are steady at last.
All disputes are settled.
By Ram's grace I have found my full reward.

The Emptiness of Applause

Imagine that moment when you are — stop — you stopped expecting that this next thing is going to do it. That the next time somebody says, "Oh, you're wonderful" or "Oh, you did that so well" or "I'm so pleased" or "Thank you so much. You helped me so much." And you milk it just for a little something.

I watched my own ego. I watched as I would lecture and people would come and they would — I mean, I sit usually higher and people look up and they listen to me and they pay money to come and listen to me. You imagine that? And then at the end, you know, and I'm trying to milk it a little bit of, gee, I must be somebody. Imagine that.

And I realized, as you — many of you know — how empty that turned out to be for me, cuz I tried it. I mean, I've been doing this for 25 years. And at first I would milk it, and crowds getting bigger. I'm more somebody. You know, and people come up and say, "Oh, thank you. You've changed my life." And even some of you have come up and said that to me. It used to be that I would say, "Yes." And I would just get a little rush off it.

Thank God that isn't happening anymore. Because I go back to my motel room and the rush would be gone. And I was just constantly going up and down on this thing, and it wasn't like I turned it off cuz I couldn't stand the pain. It was just that it became empty.

And when somebody says, "Thank you for helping me," I'm so pleased that we are journeying together. I'm so pleased to be meeting a fellow pilgrim on the path. It's such a gift to me to be sharing a journey with all of you.

And that whole idea of I'm doing it, or it's all — it just doesn't — there's no — nothing you can — you can — that and a dollar gets you on the subway. You know, it just doesn't do it anymore. Doesn't do it anymore.

And when that thing starts to fall away, what are you left with? At first you're left with despair, because there's nothing that turns you on that much anymore because each one you're doing you sort of see through even as you're doing it. And some of you, when I mention sex, will get — say, "Oh, well, never that one." But unfortunately, that one too.

And finally, you are you are forced to dive for something deeper, and once that happens everything in your life starts to change. And who you see is changing and who you are is changing. The whole panoply of of experiences, the meaning of everything is changing all the time.

My Father's Inheritance

It's like the relation my father and I had. My guru said to me one day, "Your father has a lot of money," and I said, "Yes." "He's going to leave it to you." I said, "Well, he's going to leave me my share." My guru said, "You're not to accept your inheritance."

And in one swell foop my relationship to my father changed. Because no matter how well, how kind I thought I was and how much I cared for my father, there was a little part of me that said, well, I'll be — I can be a yogi.¹⁰ What the hell, I'm going to inherit a lot later. You know, I can act like I don't have to worry about money now because I'll have it later. And there was a subtle way that was saying, you know, you're getting old. Don't you think, you know, it's time for you to move on?

I didn't say it, but I mean, there, I couldn't help but feel a little bit of that. The minute he said that money isn't yours, my whole relation to my father changed, and we have been in love ever since. Because he sensed at a very deep level, never words, cuz I never told him that my guru had said that, cuz it would hurt my father. Cuz he thinks he's leaving it to me. But I — there, there was something in me changed, and I was not feeding the paranoia in him that goes with money.

Can you understand that, what I'm — I'm saying? Is that too deep, or can you hear me?

I had wanted — I had been growing up with the idea that my father would leave me money. And so there was a little part of my mind that had an expectation. And so when I was with my father, that expectation in a very subtle, really unconscious way, or semi-conscious way, colored the nature of our our play together, our work together. And that little bit just sent out a message, a very subtle message to him, that reinforced the feeling he had — everybody wants me only for my money. Okay? And so I was in a way reinforcing the paranoia in him that kept him separate and kept reinforcing his suffering.

And the minute my guru said, "You're not to accept his inheritance," something clicked inside me. It was no longer my money. And there was something that changed, and I now wanted my father to spend all his money. And the — there was a lightening, and he couldn't figure out who I was anymore. Because that vibration was different.

Now, if you can understand that — can you now understand that example? Okay? If you can understand that example, you can understand what I'm talking about when I'm talking about helping other human beings. Because if you think you're helping, you send a message to another person about them being helped. While on the — on alternative, if I am just with everybody because you are my beloved in form, I would be with you, you would get a very different message from me.

The Face Behind the Case

And I look at Mother Teresa working with the leper or this beautiful baby she's holding here. Mother Teresa is saying, "I am working with Christ in all his distressing disguises."

Now, those of you that are nurses, doctors, lawyers, social workers, is that who you think you're working with? Look at your caseload. Think of all the forms that the spirit comes to you in. How many times do you see the spirit, and how many times do you get lost in the form?

How many times does somebody that walks into your office get categorized in your mind and you deal with the category, not the person? Even if you don't deal with a category, how many of you are dealing with the body, especially if you're a doctor or nurse, and not the psychology? If you're a psychotherapist, how many of you are dealing with the personality, but not the spirit?

You'll see that your professional identity is a role that traps you into seeing another person in a finite way, which traps them into being that person.

As I've said many times, when I started to do therapy, I was so needful to be a therapist because I was sort of a phony therapist. I didn't have a clinical degree. I had a research degree in motivation, child development, but I wanted to do clinical. So I apprenticed myself to the clinic at Harvard and Stanford. And I was sort of a phony therapist, but I really had always wanted to be a therapist. Cuz I wanted to be a doctor, actually, but I wasn't smart enough.

So, when I was in the office, I was really a therapist. I mean, with my tie and jacket and clipboard. And the person that walked in damn well better be the patient. Right? And in a way, I was rewarding them for being the patient and punishing them for not being. It's very interesting.

I mean, I remember feeling angry at some of my patients when they started to get better. Cuz they didn't need me as much, and I needed to be needed. Because my identification was with my own needs. Can some of you hear that? Yeah.

In Your Role, But Not of Your Role

Now, as I've said before, who you see in your relation of serving is a function of who you are. That if you see yourself in a psychological identity as a needful human being, you will see other people as needful human beings, and you'll say, "Well, let us work out so that your needs and my needs are fulfilled." That's a straight psychological stance these days.

If, on the other hand, you and I — I am recognizing myself as a soul who has taken incarnation in a personality and body that has needs, I walk into the room, and I meet you, and I am ready to meet you as a fellow soul, in which: what's our business together? Oh, today I'm the therapist and you are the patient. Okay. That just happens to be the way we're playing on the board today. You're going to have the top hat, and I'm going to have the iron in the game of Monopoly.

And the possibility is that at another time, our roles will change. Or even if our roles don't change, we don't need to get caught in our roles.

Most people think they need to be their role in order to be effective, and my suggestion to you is you will be much more effective when you are in your role, but not of your role. When you can play your role as a delightful dance, as a game, as a play. Not trivial game, but as a game, as a strategy, as rules, as roles, without getting lost in it.

And what burns you out as a helper is that you get lost in your role. You get lost in thinking you are doing something. That you're moving from Park Place to Baltic. Around Go.

Seeing the Beloved in Everyone

Now, to look and see the beloved in everybody, aha, a whole other ballgame.

The minute you realize that what you're seeing — what you want for yourself is to come back into the place where you are either the one or in intimate relationship to the one, because you realize that there is where the bliss is, there's where the satisfaction is, where the deep happiness is, there's where the end of suffering is, then you start to look at your life and say, "How can I use my life in order to get back home?" And that is the meaning of an incarnation is to awaken out of the illusion of separateness.

And the way of the heart in doing that is to see that one. God is your only friend. See that one as the beloved. And see the beloved in all the forms you look at.

There's a beautiful poem that I've read for years that Bhagwan Dass¹¹ introduced me to by somebody by the name of Carsley. It's from a Norman Crucifix of 1632. It's called "I Am the Great Sun," and many of you have heard this on tapes. And it's talking about the forms God comes in, and or the forms the spirit comes in, and if you don't see it, well, that's your problem, is what the poem says.

I am the great sun but you do not see me.
I am your husband but you turn away.
I am the captive but you do not free me.
I am the captain you will not obey.

I am the truth but you will not believe me.
I am your wife your child but you will leave me.
I am that God to whom you will not pray.

I am your counsel but you do not hear me.
I am the lover whom you will betray.
I am the victor but you do not cheer me.
I am the holy dove whom you will slay.

I am your life but if you will not name me
seal up your soul with tears and never blame me.

And you recognize this, I suspect, from Matthew.

For I was hungry and you gave me food.
I was thirsty and you gave me drink.
I was a stranger and you welcomed me.
I was naked and you clothed me.
I was sick and you visited me.
I was in prison and you came to me.
Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.

Through the Lover's Eyes

And this is one more thing I want to read about this level of the game. This is from a book called The Heart of a Gopi, which is a very devotional book, in which the young wife in this Hindu family, she — she's a Gopi.¹² She goes to the well and she starts to meet Krishna, this kind of playful form of God, and she falls madly in love with him. And she's always listening for the sound of his flute. Her husband's name is Nath. And she's explaining to him her predicament.

And she says, "And now, Nath, mine ears are perpetually haunted by his voice. And all Braja,¹³ all the town, Vrindavan,¹⁴ has become but a mirror of his matchless beauty. Beauty so perfect that it may not even be dreamed of by mere mortals. And my heart, ah, there is no longer a heart in Sharmila's breast." There was a long, long silence.

Then, "And what about me, Sharmila?" asked Nath very low. Her husband's saying, "If you love God so much, what happened to me?" She says, "Never, never, no, never have I loved thee as I do now."

"What?"

"Ah, Nath, Nath. How difficult to understand."

"Well, I cannot understand, it is true, and I am afraid, Sharmila. I am so afraid." And shuddering, he hid his face within his two hands.

"Nath," said I solemnly, "look deep into my eyes and listen well to each word I say. And if I speak but the shadow of a falsehood, may Krishna never appear to me again. And may Sharmila be rendered accursed forever and ever through all eternity.

"I say to thee this: did Sharmila not love thee with a love as pure as that of Sita¹⁵ for Ram, as fathomless as the ocean, as vast as eternity, never, never could she love Krishna. And if she did not love Krishna, never, no, never could she love thee with the love thou deservest." Deservest.

"It's not thy body that I love. It is thy soul and all the goodness and sweetness and strength thereof. I love thee for thy strong manhood, for thy virtue, for thy intellect, thy skill, thy tenderness, thy simplicity, truth, and steadfastness. And all this, yea, every single one of these qualities is Krishna. All is Krishna."

I cannot imagine a soul that does not, at some level, yearn to be the one, to return to the one. When I meet another person, am I meeting that soul that is yearning to come to the one, or am I meeting who that soul incarnated in as and thinks they are?

Lunch with the General

Recently, I went to Nepal for the Save the Children Foundation. And I was going in the role of being chairman of the board. And I was meeting officials of the government. And I put on my blue blazer and my necktie. And I went to luncheon with General Rana and ministers and all these people.

And I had some trepidation as I flew over there, thinking, "Well, it's pretty easy to stay in the spirit and see God everywhere when you're hanging around other people who are seeing it, too." You understand? It's called a satsang¹⁶ in Hinduism, or the sangha¹⁷ in Buddhism, or the fellowship in Christianity. There's words for that kind of people you like to hang out. That's what we're doing here. We're replenishing ourselves because we're safe mirrors for each other, because we are self-selecting who we are here.

But I thought, "What's it going to be like when I get down and have to deal in hard realities of dollars and cents and hospital plans and structures and government official?" And I sat down to lunch with Elliot and — and I looked at these people, and I haven't realized how deep my spiritual commitment had become.

Because in the past, their power would have awakened in me my third chakra¹⁸ power response. I would have locked into it's me against them, which is the world that many of them live in. But as I sat down, I saw that little place in me flicker and then not grab hold.

And I looked at them, and they were fellow beings just like me, on a journey, trying to find their way through the morass of stuff the mind creates. And some of them were busy thinking they were General Rana, and some of them busy thinking they were Mrs. Gupta and so on. And I just looked at them and I felt such love for them.

I thought, how can I — I mean, I don't anymore, but I used to think, how can I love this person? I don't even know them. It's interesting, the expression "I don't like you, but I love you" starts to resonate within me. I mean, I don't think some of these people are people I would choose to hang out with. But they are what's on the plate.

And because they're on the plate, they are what has been given to me as a gift by God in order to allow me to come to God. That's the way I understand the world. I understand that every experience that's presented to me is an opportunity through which I can awaken. It's up to me whether I use it or not. That's my karma,¹⁹ but it's it's present there.

And I look at these people and I suddenly feel this incredible sense of love. And what's a general to do when somebody looks at him and loves him that much? And what is incredibly beautiful about these Nepali people is to — without exception, they responded with love.

And that's just what Jai was telling us yesterday about the people in Española. That when we feel safe enough to keep our heart open in the presence of a power field, we create an environment where other people can come out and play in the heart space as well. Can you hear that?

But you see, if I'm identified with my needs, with my psychology, I constantly must be looking at everybody to say: can you satisfy my need? Or, if there's only one piece of tofu, who gets it? See? There's a part of me that is constantly having to treat you like an object because I identify with my desires. When you identify with your desires, other people become objects.

Now, I came into those meetings with an agenda. I came in to convince those people to do certain things that I think would be for the well-being of the blind in Nepal. The question was whether I identified with my agenda so much, with my mind and that agenda, that I treated them as objects to be manipulated to bring about the result of my agenda, or whether I opened my heart and met them as heart beings, and then, in the space of shared — of two souls meeting together — then from there we looked at what business we had.

Negotiating with an Open Heart

I remember some years ago, I was — when The Only Dance There Is was — the Journal of Transpersonal had published it in the magazine, and then it was going to be a book. And I was called into the publisher's office, a man named Bill Whitehead, who was with Dutton. Dutton? Yeah. No, it wasn't Bill Whitehead. It was somebody else at Doubleday. No, it was Bill Whitehead. He was at Doubleday. That's what's confusing.

Okay. And this guy — I'd never met him before. And he was going to negotiate a contract with me. Now, publishers, when they negotiate contracts — I don't know what you — whether you know publishers, but they, they are really weird. I mean, they, they smile a lot, but you got to watch everything, you know, and I come in, this kind of, you know, nebbish spiritual seeker. You know, I don't know much about the business world. And I can see him looking at me and pegging me as just that.

And I'm in a very nice space, and I look at this guy and I love him immediately. He's a nice guy. But I see his mind. I'm very quiet. I've been meditating a lot, and I saw his mind, and I saw his mind saying, "Well, this is going to be a soft touch, you know. We'll get a good contract out of this guy."

And I said to him, "Bill," I said, "you know, you and I immediately feel an instant rapport, and it's going to be a very beautiful friendship we're going to have." And I said, "I've got to be very careful not to create karma for myself by letting you exploit me. So that in these negotiations, I'm going to screw you to the wall, but don't take it personally."

Because just because your heart isn't — is open, because your heart is open, doesn't mean you become less than impeccable in the way you play your game.

People feel somehow, if I'm a therapist and I open my heart, it's going to cost me too much. Well, I'll tell you, it's costing you a hell of a lot more to stay in your role and keep your heart closed. Because you say, "Well, I got to work today and then I do my stuff. Then I go home and there's where my heart is." Well, what the hell's that all about?

Who were all those people you saw all day? Who was the person at the next desk? Who's the policeman? Who's the grocer? Aren't they your family? How did you decide that? Was it a biological thing that your parents did? I mean, doesn't it get interesting when you stop making those discriminations?

Then you have special work to do with certain people. In the game sense, some people you raise children with, some people you pay money to. But is the only relationship you and I have is paying money? Is that it? Or are we just the beloved meeting each other through the vehicle of paying money? Do you get caught in your vehicle all the time, or do you keep remembering the root — the root game, the nature of the real game between human beings?

If you can remember and keep that heart connection going with other people, each time you make a heart connection with another human being, it, it's like a charge of energy that goes in, and you end up higher than you started before you — you know what it's like when you meet someone. You go around here and you look at somebody and you suddenly recognize a kindred spirit and you go, "Ooh." It's just like a little charge of juice.

Well, why shouldn't that be with everybody all day long? Ah, some of them do think they are their roles.

The Beloved in Disguise

Now, the question is, do you need them to know who they are for you to get juice off your love? Do you need them to know who they are for you to get juice off the relationship, your love?

If I look at somebody and I see Krishna in drag, or I see — if I see the spirit, or I see my guru coming at me saying, "I'm going to get you this time" — you're going to take me seriously? See, that's the game I play. I mean, I'm really mashugana. I'm really out there.

Because I just deal with my guru. So, they say your only friend is God. Well, my only friend is my guru. And so, everybody here is my guru playing games with me. Saying, "I bet you can't find me in here." Hey.

Because each, each time it comes in with an incredible disguise, saying, "I'm — I've got a real problem. Could you help me?" Or, "Or I really love you. Let's go to bed." Or whatever. Hey.

And it's my guru and I say, "I see you in there. I see you. Oh, you thought you'd get me that time, didn't you? Yeah. You rascal." I call them many names, by the way. That's the most gentle of them.

Now, it's interesting, cuz a lot of you deal — a lot of you deal with people in your offices, colleagues, people in hierarchical positions who, believe me, are very much identify with their role. And they aren't about to come up for air. You may have a supervisor that's immediately post-Neanderthal. You know, a nice person. I mean, a person that's well-meaning and caring, but not an awake being.

And you're trying to awaken, and you would like to hang out with other people who are saying, "Hey, you're going to sleep. Come on, wake up." Cuz that's the fun of satsang, but you don't always have that.

Now, what happens is when somebody else takes their role seriously, they are saying to you, "This is reality." "This is what's real." And if there's a part of you that is flickery, you're going to buy it. The minute they — if they come on that strong, like if there's a part of you that is insecure and needs power, and somebody comes along exerting power, you're going to go right into your third chakra and deal with them in power.

And if you are working on yourself, you're going to notice later that you did that, and you're going to say, "How poignant. There I went again." And after a while, you see yourself going under to different kinds of people who present models of who they think they are, and who they think you are. Because everybody is telling you who you are all the time, by the way they meet you, every time they meet you.

At the Checkout Counter

Like, I go to the Stop & Shop in Boston. And I come to the checkout counter. And the checkout person says, "Hello." And then they go to kind of — and then the hello isn't to a real human being. It's to — it's to a hand holding money. And it's to a set of bundles in the making.

And I just right there, and they'll look up at me and flicker at me, and I'm just looking at them. I'm right there. Say hello. Now, I say hello because I'm looking at Maharaji,²⁰ who's coming to me as a checkout person.

Now, the person may go right back to their numbers and then say, "$22," and I hand them the money and get the change, and they never noticed that. What happened to me? If my relation to Maharaji needed them to affirm it, I'm going to be crushed. But my relation's with Maharaji.

And Maharaji's coming in a form that I must appreciate the form. Not must, but I do appreciate the form. Because God comes in an infinite variety of forms. How could you not appreciate them all? The minute you don't identify with your form, you don't have to judge other forms, as I said the other day. You can just appreciate them.

And sometimes the checkout girl or guy will look at me and realize that I am responding to them as if they are real. As if there's a real being in there. Which is not usually the case for them. Or not always the case for them. And what's fun is at least 50% of the time, they're right there. They come alive at that moment.

And there's nothing for us to do other than exchange the money and say the rather overused "Have a good day." "You, too." But somehow, when you say it, you're saying it. You're saying it: "Have a good day." You know, I mean, it really — you really want them to have a good day.

So, when you can hear this, you see that who you serve, who you think you're serving, determines what you get back from the service you do. If you're satisfied with the money, that's what you'll get, the money. And the money will come and go. If you are satisfied with the accolades, with the "Thank you very much, you've helped me a lot," that's what you'll get, and believe me, it'll be empty later on. When you open your coffers, it will have all turned into slush, as the poem say.

But if the reward is just staying in love, staying in the place of love, and you keep cultivating it in yourself, it's like bringing yourself always up to your fourth chakra.²¹ Just bringing yourself into love all the time.

And you practice with everybody you meet, and the ones that catch you are the ones you love, because that's Maharajji really getting you. And sometimes you don't even realize they caught you, they caught you so bad, till later on when you're meditating. And it starts to come up, and you say, "Oh, wow, did that person get me?"

Somebody comes along and they say — they awaken lust, and you go from "I love you" to "I want you." Right? Somebody comes to you who are looking I love, and somebody says, "Well, I just happen to have a million dollars I'm trying to give away." And suddenly you go from love to desire: I want the money. And your smile turns from the smile of joy to the smile of manipulation. Yuck. Ooh, God. I mean, I do it all the time, so believe me, I — I know of what I'm speaking.

When the Heart Opens

Now, it's interesting. When you are in love with somebody, have you ever noticed how a lot of the qualities that you thought were really you — like, I — I hear people say, "Oh God, getting up in the morning is such a drag. I hate it. God, and I just don't want to talk to anybody, and I just want my cup of coffee, and..." You know that feeling. Okay.

And then that person falls in love. Suddenly there they are, bringing breakfast in bed with a flower to somebody in the morning. I mean, who could that be? It's not me. It's not gruff old me. It's very bizarre how, when the heart opens, you would like your beloved to be happy. Just like you feel towards your children: you want your children to be happy, and you don't even give a damn about your happiness, because their happiness brings you more joy than your own happiness does. Now, can you imagine what it's like to love everybody that way?

Now listen again to the quote that I was using this week. Gandhi²² — God — Gandhi said, "God demands nothing less than complete self-surrender as the price for the only real freedom that is worth having." Surrender out of your identification with your role. "And when a person thus loses" — I'll use him this time — "loses himself, he immediately finds himself in the service of all that lives. It becomes his delight and recreation. He is a new person, never weary of spending himself in the service of God's creation."

If you've seen the beloved, there's nothing that brings you more joy than serving the beloved.

Is the beloved a mother and a child in Africa? Is it a blind man in Nepal? Is it a homeless person in New York City? Are they them, or is that the family? Is the family — is it the lover? Is it the beloved? Is it Christ in the distressing disguises? Is it Maharaji in drag? Which one is it? You pick it.

Is it your higher self coming to ask you, "Can you love me here, too?" Every experience, every time you turn your head and look and see something.

The Kitten in Goa

I had this interesting experience. I was with a friend of mine in Goa²³ in India. And we were there to smoke dope and play on the beach and all that sort of stuff. It was my Goa experience. Some of you know what that means.

And late one afternoon, we were walking to get the last bus to go into town to have a Chinese dinner. In our luxurious — it was sunny and warm and there were parrots in the trees and beautiful flowers.

And we got near the bus stop, and my head turned. I was just looking around and I happened to look down and there was a tiny kitten about this big with its legs splayed and its hair standing up on end with a look of absolute panic.

Now, the person I was with is a very sentimental, very romanticizing person. Now, I could look at that cat and I could say, "Well, it's a cat and it's in trouble and it's an Indian cat and cats have a hard time in India." And that's the way of life and walk on.

I don't know. I can just tell you what I was experiencing. I looked at the cat. I felt that heart go out and then that equanimity understanding of, "Look, the universe is full of cats that are in trouble. The last bus, I can hear it coming down the road. It's — if we go for this cat, there's no Chinese food." I mean, I heard all that in my mind, all right?

And for some — I don't know. I mean, I would say, I'd like to say it's the higher compassion in myself. I don't know. I nudged my friend and I pointed.

And that was it. Not only no bus, no Chinese food. But eye droppers and milk formulas. We were planning to leave for Benares²⁴. We couldn't leave. The cat was too sick. Nobody in the neighborhood wanted the cat. They wouldn't even take the cat if I gave them money to take the cat.

The cat cried all night. We held the cat. We rocked the cat. The cat puked and shat everywhere. Two weeks later, the cat died. We buried the cat and went on with our life.

What do you do with those cats?

But it's interesting: when my friend and I reflect about our trip, one of the high points was our experience with a cat. Because it pulled us both out of our preoccupations with ourselves. Took us to another level.

Becoming Service

I can just tell you that in these past years, ever since when I said to Maharajji, "How do I know God?" and he said, "Feed people," and I said, "How do I get enlightened?" and he said, "Serve people," I've tried not to hear that for years.

But as I hear it more deeply, and as I really start to understand karma yoga,²⁵ the yoga of coming to God through service, and I keep surrendering as Gandhi's talking about, just keep surrendering into it. So, it's not me doing service, which is that lesser role identity, even the mythic one, it's the other one of: I am a being going to God, and what is my vehicle? My vehicle happens to be doing service.

And I serve God to come to God. That's the way into God. There are different ways to come to God, and that just happens to be one of the ways, and it's the way I'm teaching this week, cuz that's my way. That's the way I do it.

And the lesser one is, "Oh, I'm serving." Like I pick up some dishes on the table in the dining hall that aren't my dishes. Now, sometimes there's a little thought in me of, you know, maybe someone will see me picking up these dishes, you know, and the staff will see me, and that'll really show them what really that level of behavior is really about, and then that's one level. Sometimes it's, "Well, I'm going this way. I'll take these dishes." It's another level.

At that point you have just become service. You are just looking for ways to help your beloved. If you've got a pain, it's our pain. Let's do something about it.

The thing you finally have to examine, which we will be examining more this weekend, is if you act that way, do you lose something or do you just gain?

Because most people are afraid that if they open their hearts in life, it's going to cost them too much. And I really want to get you reflecting about the fact that if you don't open your hearts, it's costing you more.

More than you can afford.